WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump will take up to 60 days to assess the economic impact of the Russia sanctions and tariffs he waived a day earlier, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Saturday, as the president himself told reporters he has yet to announce a final decision on the matter, according to Reuters.
“A lot of you don’t know what my decision is yet, but we’ll figure it out, and you’ll figure it out,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, on Saturday, the day after he signed an executive order waiving key sanctions and tariffs under the Russia sanctions law known as the Graham Act.
Rubio, speaking before boarding a plane for a trip to Uzbekistan, said the 60-day period was intended as an economic review. “I think the president wants to take the 60-day period of time to sort of analyze what imposing both sanctions and tariffs will mean to the global economy and even to the US economy,” he said, according to Reuters.
The Graham Act, which Trump signed last month at the urging of lawmakers who want to pressure Moscow over its war in Ukraine, was due to bring its measures into effect next week. They include sanctions on Russia itself and tariffs on goods from countries that import Russian energy supplies. Friday’s executive order did not specify how long the waiver would last; Rubio’s remarks are the first indication of a timetable.
The tariff provisions are what make the review complicated, Rubio suggested, because they reach beyond Russia. He pointed to India, an important U.S. partner that has diversified its energy supplies but remains heavily dependent on Russian oil, as one of the countries that would be affected if the tariffs were imposed.
Rubio also defended a separate U.S. agreement with Russia to increase diesel supplies to global markets, aimed at easing fuel prices that have climbed amid the war with Iran and disruptions to energy supplies. Under the agreement, Trump has said Russia initially would supply more than 300,000 metric tons of diesel to the United States, followed by shipments in November and beyond. “That diesel is going to be sold one way or the other,” Rubio said. “The only difference is how much of it the United States was going to get.”
“These conflicts around the world are starting to crash into each other,” Rubio added, describing the diesel deal and the sanctions waiver as products of the same problem: wars in the Middle East and Ukraine disrupting global energy supplies at the same time.
The waiver has drawn criticism in Kyiv and on Capitol Hill. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned it would embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin and prolong the war. Senator Darline Graham, the South Carolina Republican whose late brother Lindsey Graham championed the legislation that bears the family name, said she disagreed with Trump’s decision and planned to discuss it with him when he campaigns for her next week. “Personally, I would choose to keep the pressure on Russia,” she told reporters on Saturday. “Because I don’t trust Putin and I don’t trust Russia.”
Why it matters: the decision comes just weeks before November’s midterm elections, with Trump under pressure over high energy prices as the war with Iran disrupts global oil supplies. Supporters of the Graham Act argue that waiving it removes, at least for now, the main new economic pressure Washington was preparing to apply to Moscow. Critics of the waiver in both parties say the 60-day clock will show whether the pause is a negotiating tool or a longer retreat from the sanctions strategy.
What happens next: the review period runs into December. The measures remain law and could still be allowed to take effect if the president decides the economic cost is manageable, and members of Congress who backed the act have signalled they will press the administration in public and in private in the meantime.
Source: Reuters reporting on Rubio’s remarks, October 18, 2026.
